On Eklund on Foot

According to Eklund (2011, 2017), Foot’s view of thick concepts is both intuitively appealing and incorrect. Attending to where and how her reasoning goes wrong, he argues, can generate an account of thick concepts that overcomes two puzzles: the puzzle of ‘seeming sufficiency’ and the puzzle of ‘emptiness’. There is some ambiguity, to my mind, concerning exactly what Foot’s view is. This has to do with how she understands the notion of the descriptive. If she means ‘descriptive’ to be equivalent to ‘non-normative’ (or ‘non-evaluative’) then I think Eklund has presented her view correctly, but it is puzzling that he finds it intuitively appealing, and he misidentifies where her reasoning goes wrong. If she has a more complicated notion of the descriptive in mind, then Eklund fails to present her view correctly. I proceed as follows: I outline Eklund’s interpretation of Foot in §1. In §2 I explain why I think there is ambiguity in her use of the notion of the descriptive, ambiguity which allows for two different interpretations of her view, and I explain what these two interpretations are. The second interpretation gets us closer to what is, in my view, the correct account of the thick. Nonetheless, it still falls short. I explain why this is so in §3. In §4 I put forward an account of thick concepts that avoids the shortfall, and I show how this view solves Eklund’s puzzles of seeming sufficiency and of emptiness

Introduction: new directions in energy demand research

Meeting the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement and limiting global temperature increases to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels demands rapid reductions in global carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing energy demand has a central role in achieving this goal, but existing policy initiatives have been largely incremental in terms of the technological and behavioural changes they encourage. Against this background, this book develops a sociotechnical approach to the challenge of reducing energy demand and illustrates this with a number of empirical case studies from the United Kingdom. In doing so, it explores the emergence, diffusion and impact of low-energy innovations. This chapter introduces the main themes of the book, including explorations of the processes and mechanisms through which different types of innovations become (or fail to become) established, the identification of the role of different groups, assessments of the resulting impacts on energy demand and other social goals, and the development of recommendations for both encouraging the diffusion of such innovations and maximising their long-term impact

Research in action-developing and evaluating a student research placement experience

Evidence based practice is essential in the provision of high-quality contemporary nursing practice. Yet nursing students often lack an understanding of the research process because applied research experience is rarely facilitated in undergraduate nursing programmes. Students research knowledge is mostly gained via classroom based theoretical teaching; however, it is a challenging subject to teach and is often evaluated poorly by students who find the subject uninteresting and difficult to apply to their clinical practice. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of student nurses after undertaking a nurse led primary research study placement. The study explores the students' experiences of a research placement using a phenomenological approach with the data collection method of drawings and narration which were then subject to Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis as a data analysis method. This study was undertaken with 18 nursing students who were enrolled in a United Kingdom university, who had recently participated in a nurse-led research study exploring the use of sensors to detect atrial fibrillation in members of the public in a supermarket. The following themes were developed by the researchers: Practice makes perfect, Enhancing communication, Research attitude, Making a difference, Increased confidence, Enhanced skills, Researcher collaborations, The views of others. Students valued the research placement; the experience provided insight into the conduct of research in primary health and allowed students to learn about research in an experiential way which proved to be more effective than usual classroom methods. Students' communication skills were enhanced, through interacting with the public in a different way, who were keen to engage with them because of their student status. [Abstract copyright: Crown Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ChiPrints quick guide

A quick guide to the University of Chichester's research repository including: what the repository is, where the repository can be accessed, why researchers should deposit, a simple guide to depositing, and information on how to get help if necessary

Strengthening nursing, midwifery and allied health professional leadership in the UK - a realist evaluation

Purpose: This paper aims to share the findings of a realist evaluation study that set out to identify how to strengthen nursing, midwifery and allied health professions (NMAHP) leadership across all health-care contexts in the UK conducted between 2018 and 2019. The collaborative research team were from the Universities of Bangor, Ulster, the University of the West of Scotland and Canterbury Christ Church University. Design/methodology/approach: Realist evaluation and appreciative inquiry were used across three phases of the study. Phase 1 analysed the literature to generate tentative programme theories about what works, tested out in Phase 2 through a national social media Twitter chat and sense-making workshops to help refine the theories in Phase 3. Cross-cutting themes were synthesised into a leadership framework identifying the strategies that work for practitioners in a range of settings and professions based on the context, mechanism and output configuration of realist evaluation. Stakeholders contributed to the ongoing interrogation, analysis and synthesis of project outcomes. Findings: Five guiding lights of leadership, a metaphor for principles, were generated that enable and strengthen leadership across a range of contexts. – “The Light Between Us as interactions in our relationships”, “Seeing People’s Inner Light”, “Kindling the Spark of light and keeping it glowing”, “Lighting up the known and the yet to be known” and “Constellations of connected stars”. Research limitations/implications: This study has illuminated the a-theoretical nature of the relationships between contexts, mechanisms and outcomes in the existing leadership literature. There is more scope to develop the tentative programme theories developed in this study with NMAHP leaders in a variety of different contexts. The outcomes of leadership research mostly focussed on staff outcomes and intermediate outcomes that are then linked to ultimate outcomes in both staff and patients (supplemental). More consideration needs to be given to the impact of leadership on patients, carers and their families. Practical implications: The study has developed additional important resources to enable NMAHP leaders to demonstrate their leadership impact in a range of contexts through the leadership impact self-assessment framework which can be used for 360 feedback in the workplace using the appreciative assessment and reflection tool. Social implications: Whilst policymakers note the increasing importance of leadership in facilitating the culture change needed to support health and care systems to adopt sustainable change at pace, there is still a prevailing focus on traditional approaches to individual leadership development as opposed to collective leadership across teams, services and systems. If this paper fails to understand how to transform leadership policy and education, then it will be impossible to support the workforce to adapt and flex to the increasingly complex contexts they are working in. This will serve to undermine system integration for health and social care if the capacity and capability for transformation are not attended to. Whilst there are ambitious global plans (WHO, 2015) to enable integrated services to be driven by citizen needs, there is still a considerable void in understanding how to authentically engage with people to ensure the transformation is driven by their needs as opposed to what the authors think they need. There is, therefore, a need for systems leaders with the full skillset required to enable integrated services across place-based systems, particularly clinicians who are able to break down barriers and silo working across boundaries through the credibility, leadership and facilitation expertise they provide. Originality/value: The realist evaluation with additional synthesis from key stakeholders has provided new knowledge about the principles of effective NMAHP leadership in health and social care, presented in such a way that facilitates the use of the five guiding lights to inform further practice, education, research and policy development

Telephone administered cognitive behaviour therapy for treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder: randomised controlled non-inferiority trial

This is a freely-available open access publication. Please cite the published version which is available via the DOI link in this record.To compare the effectiveness of cognitive behaviour therapy delivered by telephone with the same therapy given face to face in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder.NHS Executive North West (Research and Development Fund